


Missed Chances

by fandom_filth



Series: AUgust Winterwolf/Loganbucky [7]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bucky Actually Died, Alternate Universe - Death, Bitter Logan, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Memorial, Father-Son Relationship, Flashbacks, Gay Bucky Barnes, Grief/Mourning, Logan just doesn't know anymore, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), a bit at the end with Daken, is he not always bitter though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25918081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_filth/pseuds/fandom_filth
Summary: If HYDRA hadn't succeeded in saving Bucky's life . . . not much would change, up until a certain point.  They'd find someone else to be Winter Soldier.  History would remain consistent up until the years Bucky would have been rescued, at which point, timelines diverge.  For most, this doesn't mean much.For some, it changes everything.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Logan (X-Men)
Series: AUgust Winterwolf/Loganbucky [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861825
Kudos: 7





	Missed Chances

_"Hey. I love you." Bucky told him, firmly, not caring who heard, before he and Steve rushed out to the front lines._   
_"I love you too." He said back, without needing to stop and consider it._

Logan parked his bike and locked it outside of the museum. He didn't speak on his way in, just flashed his veterans' card that explained away his bones setting off the metal detectors.

  
_"Jimmy." Bucky sighed with relief, as they clutched each other tight after a hard mission. They pulled apart appropriately, though Bucky's soft look was anything but appropriate. "Good to see you're in one piece."_   
_"Wish I could say the same." Logan examined the bandage around his left arm, heart clenching at the infection he could smell beneath it. "Get that clean or you'll lose the arm."_   
_Bucky laughed, open and happy - such a rare sound out here in war. "Yes, sir."_

Past each exhibit, heading for the section on World War II and the 1940s. Logan didn't rush, didn't stop. No one interrupted him - not him, in his uniform, his dog tags around his neck in clear view, hands stuffed in his pockets and eyes clearly lost in another time.

  
_"Hey, Jim." Bucky asked him softly, cuddled up to his back in the safety of their isolated tent. "If we make it through this - when we make it through all this. Where do you think you'll go?"_   
_He opened his eyes and stared at the tent wall, picturing . . . what? He couldn't go back to his brother. That bridge was burned for now. "I don't know. Hadn't really thought about it."_   
_Bucky sighed against the back of his neck and kissed it tentatively. "You could come home with me." He offered, voice shaking and his touch suddenly careful._   
_That . . . sounded comforting. "Maybe." Of course, Bucky knew this as a yes._

He entered the 1940s section and began to pay attention again, looking for a specific part. Somewhere to visit. Somewhere he should have been long ago.

  
_"When we go home . . . if you come with me, if we could. Would you marry me?" Bucky asked softly._   
_He froze. No one had ever asked before, and he vividly remembered the consequences the last time he had done so. It had even been in bed . . ._   
_This was a war zone. A comrade in arms who knew well the risks, asking him to marry him anyway, knowing there was a chance they wouldn't make it home in time to do so. Asking him this before he left on a several month mission, afraid, certainly, that he wouldn't return._   
_He rolled over in Bucky's arms and cupped his face to kiss him, soft and warm and pressing all the love he felt forward into the contact. He smiled grimly when they pulled apart. "Tell you what. I'll let you know when I get back."_   
_Bucky grinned crookedly and kissed him again. "I love you."_   
_"I love you too."_

Logan stopped in front of the Bucky Barnes memorial and stared at the plaque, impersonally relating the man's accomplishments for an audience who would never know who he really was.

  
_He smiled to himself as he hopped out of the plane, looking forward to being back in Bucky's arms again. He still had to give him his answer. He'd have to get them alone tonight somehow._   
_The team was all too grim when he walked towards them in the training yard, and he couldn't see the familiar mop of brown hair and stubble among them. His frown deepened when he saw Fury's apparent promotion. His steely gray eyes turned abruptly onto Steve._   
_Steve looked more haggard than he'd ever seen him, clearly having cried recently with his eyes welling up again. "Jim . . . I'm sorry. We had a mission a month ago . . . I tried to save him, we all did, but he didn't want us to stop for him . . ."_   
_Ice stabbed into his heart and he bared his teeth. "Steve. Where's Bucky."_   
_"Jim . . ."_   
_"Steve. Where's my -" The words caught in his throat. Safety, Jim. Deportation if they know._   
_Steve, of course, knew. Bucky would have told him. He looked at him so sadly. "I'm sorry. He . . . Bucky . . . He didn't make it. He's gone, Jim. I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking -"_   
_"How?"_   
_"What?"_   
_"How did he die?"_   
_Steve shut his eyes. "He fell. From a train, on a cliffside. I went back to try and help him back up - he'd caught himself on the broken door - Dugan tried to help too, but he insisted we were wasting time . . ."_   
_"It was **you**." _   
_"No, I-"_   
_"He sacrificed himself so you could complete your mission." Hatred dripped from his tone and he didn't try to hide it, the monstrous side of him that Bucky had restrained rejoicing in the sight of Steve flinching._   
_"I'm sorry." Steve offered again, instead of defending himself._   
_"Did you at least succeed?"_   
_Steve's silence was answer enough._   
_A reinforced punch sent him flying through the barracks door and left him groaning and winded on the floor. Jim turned on his heel and left. The Howling Commandoes would not hear from him again until after Steve, too, had fallen._

Logan looked up at the portrait of Bucky. They had colored it in from an old black and white picture of him. His eyes were the wrong color, his skin a little too pale, hair a little too dark. He couldn't really imagine this as his lost lover.  
He pulled out the ring box from his pocket and set it quietly on the plaque. Staring at the empty uniform and the personal effects scattered around the glass box, he began to talk.   
"You asked me once, before I left for the Pacific, what I planned to do when the war was over. I didn't know. You offered to let me come home with you."  
He paused and swallowed past a lump in his throat.  
"I said, maybe. You knew I meant yes. You asked me again, if we both made it back, if we could do it once we found a home, if I'd marry you."  
He shut his eyes and saw Bucky's warm smile again. Hot, wet streaks stained his face and disappeared into his beard. "I was leaving the next morning. I . . . I promised you I'd answer when we were reunited."  
"Sir?" A soft voice asked to his right.  
Logan opened his eyes again and stared up at the black and white photo, the one more familiar to him, by Bucky's bike. "When I got back to the European front, though, you were gone. You had sacrificed yourself for the sake of a mission your stupid friend couldn't even complete without you. You always were like that, though, ready to throw your own life away for him. And he never saw that as well as he should have. You'd be furious with me for saying so, but it's true. He's a good man, but he took you for granted."  
He shook his head and cleared his throat, barely aware of the eyes on him in the real world. "He's alive, you know. Seventy fucking years later. That idiot gets to live, and comes home a goddamn hero, and you. You, who sacrificed yourself so many times to give him a chance, you gave him everything, even your life, and you get a plaque."  
His mouth twisted unpleasantly. "You get a plaque, a few paragraphs in the history book, and people don't remember who you really were. I should be used to this by now, old as I am, but it never hurts any less. You gave him everything, and when all you had left was your heart, you gave that to me. And you let the world destroy everything else."  
Even an ordinary person could have heard a pin drop in the room now.  
"I promised you I'd answer you one day. For a long time, I hoped they were wrong. The people who could have saved your life still would have broken you, but somehow I hoped they would anyway. I'm selfish like that. But it's over now. I found their files. I know you're . . . this is the closest we're getting."  
A soft splash on the floor brought Logan's attention to his tears hitting it. Impatiently, he dashed them away from his eyes. "I married someone else after you were gone. When I didn't remember you. Itsu Akihiro, you would've liked her. She would've liked you, too. We had a kid. I thought he was killed, when she was, about a year after we were married, but I found out recently he's alive. He's hurting. Broken.  
"The funny part - the worst part - is, I lost her the same way I lost you, you know? I left for something. A mission, a job. To do a task I thought was important. I didn't make it back in time, and when I did, you were both gone.  
"I've made my peace with Itsu's death. She died because of enemies I've made. It was my fault, but all I can do now is try to protect our child. I've had my revenge on the ones who did this to her.  
"You, though . . . there's no one to blame. I can't kill Steve for trying to save you, even if it is why you did this. I can't . . . I can't blame you for doing what you were always going to do. And I've got nothing left of you."  
Logan took a deep breath and opened the box, revealing the simple silver band he'd picked out. They wouldn't have been able to wear anything more elaborate, not back then. Bucky would have just loved the gesture. "So, love. I'm here. And I'm answering. I know it's too late. Still." He wiped at his eyes again and turned away from the display. "I'm gonna miss you, darlin'."  
"Father." Daken's voice was oddly soft and when Logan looked up, his stance was more relaxed than Logan had ever seen it, his arms folded defensively. "Are you . . ." He trailed off.  
Gay? All right? Logan swallowed back the sarcastic reply and shook his had. "Grieving, kid. Something you need?"  
Daken jerked his chin at the memorial. "He was a man who liked men?"  
"He was gay. I'm . . . not." Logan sighed. It was far too complicated for him to figure out what he felt. "Why?"  
Daken's mask of invulnerability slipped back into place before he looked Logan in the eye again, but there was soft thought on his face for a moment just before then. He shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm surprised, that's all. You didn't strike me as . . . someone open to such things."  
"Daken . . . I'm too tired to play word games right now." Logan said, bluntly, weariness more emotional than physical weighing him down. "Do you need something?"  
His son eyed him and then the memorial. "He died today, didn't he?"  
Logan swallowed further argument and just nodded. Any conversation with Daken was something. It was worth indulging him. Bucky would want him to nurture this.  
Daken nodded too as if that confirmed a suspicion he'd had. He pushed off the wall and nodded to his father. "My condolences." As he turned away he paused. "Just . . . do you do this for my mother?"  
Logan's eyes stung again and he squeezed them shut, shaking his head again. "Every year, since I beat the amnesia."  
Daken nodded and left him alone without another word.  
Logan left the ring box where it sat and followed him out. It was over. Time was up. He'd missed his chance, again.  
This time, he wasn't sure he'd try again for a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry?


End file.
